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MEMPHIS (AP) -- The uncle of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright said that police have told the family the athlete who had been missing for 10 days has been found dead.

Curtis Wright told the Associated Press that police called the player's father, Herb Wright, Wednesday afternoon with the news he had died.

Sgt. Alyssa Macon-Moore of the Memphis Police Department wrote in an e-mail to the AP that police were investigating the death of an unidentified man. Asked if the man was Wright, she wrote they could not confirm the victim's identity Wednesday night. The Commercial Appeal cited a police source as identifying the body found in a field in southeast Memphis as Lorenzen Wright.

The 34-year-old Wright was last seen July 18 when he was expected to fly out of town.

He averaged eight points and 6.4 rebounds per game in 778 career games.

Nearly 50 people gathered next to a road blocked off by police beside a wooded area about 15 miles south of downtown Memphis, while TV news helicopters showed investigators scouring the grounds for evidence.

Former NBA star Penny Hardaway, who played at Memphis two years before Wright, said he heard the news from a friend and went to the scene near where the body was found.

"I cried. The emotions hit me immediately. It's just sad because we lost a good person and a brother," Hardaway said.

Elliot Perry, another friend and former Memphis player, also was at the scene. Wendy Wilson, who once worked as Wright's personal assistant, also was there and said Wright often used the road police had cordoned off as a shortcut to his mother's house.